The highly anticipated film Hidden Figures was released this week, the film stars Taraji P.Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe. The film tells the untold story of three African-American women who worked at NASA serving as the brains behind one of the greatest operations in history: launching John Glenn into orbit.
Katherine G Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson crossed gender and race lines to inspire future generations to dream big. They managed to restore the nations confidence in space travel and galvanised the world. This film has already produced high ratings – we at Amor rated in a 4/5 – due to it’s incredible cast and inspiring story.
The film is not the first of it’s kind, female empowerment movies are becoming more popular than ever with so many producers wanting to showcase the hardship women have experienced in the past.
Suffragette
In 2015 Carey Mulligan, Anne-MArie Duff, Helena Bonham Carter and Meryl Streep recreating one of the most famous womens movements of all time – the right to vote.
Suffragists were activists in Britian who campaigned to get women the right to vote. The fought for equality through risking their jobs, homes, families and lives to contribute towards the cause. A memorable moment from the film was witnesses Maud Watts (played by Mulligan) be forced to drink milk through a tube in her nose.
The movie shed light of the major situation in the early 20th-century when womens lives in the UK were changed forever.
The Help
Hidden Figures star Octavia Spencer joined Emma Stone and Viola Davies in 2011 to turn bestselling book The Help into a feature film.
The 2009 by Kathryn Stockett was based on the authors own upbringing, she grew up in Jackson in the 1960s with a black housekeeper. The American Period drama detailed the events during the civil rights movement of the 60s from the American maids’ point of view on the white families they worked for.
The film explores the hardships they went through on a daily basis.
Erin Brokovich
Julia Roberts portrayed Erin Brockovich in the 2000 film based on the life of the legal clerk and her major lawsuit against Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
Brockovich found that PG&E were not informing local water boards over contaminated groundwater in Hinckley, USA. Brockovich’s research resulted in PG&E settling the case in 1996 for $333 million, the lawyers received 40% of this; just over $133 million, Brockovich was given $2 million from her boss as a reward for working on the case.
Wild
In 2014 Reese Witherspoon brought the 1,100 mile hike that Cherly Strayed undertook to the big screen.
After divorcing her husband and loosing her mother, Cherly Strayed walked 1,100 miles along the Pacific Crest Trail alone, walking along mountain ranges and difficult terrain. In 1995 Cherly Strayed embarked on her journey, beginning in Mojave, California and ending her 94-day trek at the Bridge of the Gods on the Oregon-Washington border.
Words: Amy Jo Taylor
